Top 5 things you should read or listen to before starting your CPQ project

Ok, so you're planning to implement CPQ at your business. You figured you should maybe do some reading to learn some tips and tricks. Where should you start?

We've collected the 5 most important things you should read or listen to about CPQ before starting your project.

Gartner publishes a research paper once a year in the form of a Magic Quadrant. The latest version was released in Fall 2020. The document can usually be downloaded for free from some of the vendor's web sites (Tacton).
2. Knowledge-Based Configuration: From Research to Business Cases by Alexander Felfernig, Lothar Hotz, Claire Bagley, Juha Tiihonen

This is an academic-styled book about configuration. We don't recommend you to read the whole thing, as it will gain you limited value for actually implementing CPQ. We do recommend chapter 2 for a brief history of configuration, chapter 6 for understanding of different technologies for CPQ and chapter 16-19 for valuable insights into implementations at different companies.

3. Product Customization by Lars Hvam

This is a really good book for preparing your company for a CPQ implementation, how to document your CPQ data before the implementation.

4. The CPQ Podcast Novus CPQ is an independent CPQ analyst firm. Their podcast is focused on interviewing experts and CPQ vendors. Some of their interviews are really insightful:

• Ulf Harlou at CPC
• Jordan Jewell at IDC
• Lewis Columbus at Forbes

5. Top 10 reasons why CPQ projects fail

Don't miss this blog post describing the top 10 pitfalls when implementing CPQ. Learn from mistakes made in other CPQ project, and avoid doing them in your project.